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Azure OpenAI vs IBM Watson Machine Learning comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure OpenAI
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
1st
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Watson Machine Learning
Ranking in AI Development Platforms
16th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the AI Development Platforms category, the mindshare of Azure OpenAI is 6.5%, down from 15.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Watson Machine Learning is 2.0%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI Development Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Azure OpenAI6.5%
IBM Watson Machine Learning2.0%
Other91.5%
AI Development Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

RC
AI Engineering Manager at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Empowerment in regulatory content generation marred by inconsistency and hallucination issues
While it is good, we sometimes encounter hallucination issues, which is a significant concern. We are changing the prompt and fine-tuning it, but we still face some inconsistent behavior. We have specific instructions and keep the temperature very low to avoid overly generative responses, ensuring we receive specific answers from the particular source document without deviation; however, the results can sometimes vary. The main issue with Azure OpenAI is the inconsistency in output. We have a set template instruction, and it should generate within those parameters without any creativity because it's meant for regulatory authoring documents. The business provides the template instructions, and it should generate accordingly. While we have different prompts for various needs, sometimes it generates the correct results, and sometimes it does not, leading to inconsistency. For stability, based on the current model I am using, I would rate Azure OpenAI a 7 due to the ongoing hallucination issues.
Anurag Mayank - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at Maruti Suzuki India Limited
A highly efficient solution that delivers the desired results to its users
I had not considered how the solution could be improved because I was focused on how it was helping me to solve my issues. If I consider how we want to use it in our organization, certain areas of improvement can be addressed. For instance, we want to use it with Generative AI, not like ChatGPT, but in a way intended for industrial use. It would be beneficial to incorporate more AI into the solution.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It's very easy to set up and easy to use; there is no issue with that."
"The most valuable feature of Azure OpenAI stems from the GPT-3.5 models it provides to its users."
"My goal was to create an experience where project managers don't have to read through entire documents. Instead, they can ask a question and receive relevant point analysis. This analysis identifies the document and specific section where the information resides. Previously, users had to rely on these document references. Now, Azure OpenAI enhances the experience by providing the answer directly in the user's own language, relevant to their context."
"The Azure platform integrates seamlessly with Databricks and all other Azure-related tools such as Power BI."
"It's very powerful. It allows users to query our documents using natural language and receive answers in the same way. This makes our product information much more accessible than traditional keyword-based search."
"OpenAI's models are more mature than Watson's. They offer a wider range of features and provide richer outputs."
"We have many use cases for the solution, such as digitalizing records, a chatbot looking at records, and being able to use generative AI on them."
"Two aspects I appreciate are the turnaround time and ease of use. As it's a managed service, the quick turnaround is beneficial, and the simple interface makes it easy to work with. Performance and scalability are also strong points since you can scale as needed."
"I was particularly interested in trying the AutoML feature to see how it handles data and proposes new models. The variety of models it provides is impressive."
"We can enable and change developer productivity with artificial intelligence-recommended code based on natural language input or exciting source code."
"It is has a lot of good features and we find the image classification very useful."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution's the cost and human labor savings."
"The solution is very valuable to our organization due to the fact that we can work on it as a workflow."
"It has improved self-service and customer satisfaction."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution ten out of ten."
 

Cons

"Latency performance is a major part. And I'm seeking support for multiple models that handle text, images, videos, and voice. I'm from India, and I'm looking for more support in Indian languages. There are 18 official languages and many more unofficial. We need support for these languages, especially in voice moderation, which is not yet available."
"Azure OpenAI will be expensive if you want to implement it as a permanent solution for a customer."
"Azure OpenAI is not available in all regions, and its technical support should be improved."
"Azure could significantly benefit from including more LLM models apart from OpenAI, as I often need to switch clouds when a model doesn't meet my requirements."
"Our customers are worried about data management, ethical, and security issues."
"Sometimes, the responses are repetitive."
"Since we don't train the model on our data, it's a struggle to ensure OpenAI answers questions exclusively from our data. During user testing, we found ways to make the system provide answers from outside sources."
"Azure needs to work on its own model development and improve the integration of voice-to-text services, particularly for right-to-left languages such as Arabic and Urdu. The accuracy in these languages requires improvement."
"They should add more GPU processing power to improve performance, especially when dealing with large amounts of data."
"The supporting language is limited."
"If I consider how we want to use it in our organization, certain areas of improvement can be addressed. For instance, we want to use it with Generative AI, not like ChatGPT, but in a way intended for industrial use."
"Honestly, I haven't seen any comparative report that has run the same data through two different artificial intelligence or machine learning capabilities to get something out of it. I would love to see that."
"In future releases, I would like to see a more flexible environment."
"Scaling is limited in some use cases. They need to make it easier to expand in all aspects."
"Sometimes training the model is difficult."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"According to the negotiations taking place and the contract, there is a need to make either monthly or yearly payments to use the solution."
"I'm uncertain about the licensing, specifically the pricing. This falls under the purview of other teams, particularly the sales teams. I am not informed about the pricing details."
"I rate the product pricing six out of ten."
"The cost is quite high and fixed."
"The cost is pretty high. Even by US standards, you would find it high."
"If you consider the long-term aspect of any project, Azure OpenAI is a costly solution."
"Regarding pricing and licensing, it's a bit complex due to the minimum purchase requirement for PTO units. We're evaluating the best approach between PTE and pay-as-you-go models. Our organization is cautious about committing to PTE due to the fixed bandwidth reservation, while pay-as-you-go doesn't offer enough flexibility. We're discussing these matters with legal teams to ensure compliance and data security."
"Cost-wise, the product's price is a bit on the higher side."
"I've only been using the free tier, but it's quite competitive on a service basis."
"The pricing model is good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
5%
University
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
10%
Educational Organization
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Azure OpenAI?
The product is easy to integrate with our IT workflow.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Azure OpenAI?
In terms of pricing for Azure OpenAI, I would rate it as average compared to Gemini. Currently, Gemini is becoming increasingly popular, which prompts leadership to consider a switch primarily due ...
What needs improvement with Azure OpenAI?
I have not thought about how Azure OpenAI can be improved. I have not explored AI model customization in Azure OpenAI, but it's not a very common use case to do model customization. There are certa...
What needs improvement with IBM Watson Machine Learning?
Sometimes training the model is difficult. We need to have at least a few different components to evaluate and understand the behavior of different users to have a very, very high accuracy in the m...
What is your primary use case for IBM Watson Machine Learning?
We use different artificial intelligence models to build questions and get answers for clients.
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Azure OpenAI vs. IBM Watson Machine Learning and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.